Boston Report

“Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog, it’s too dark to read.”— Groucho Marx

As humans, we are wonderful spreaders of misinformation. Take dog years. Since childhood, I’ve heard, and Lord forgive me, passed along the old adage: “One dog year equals seven human years.” The beauty of stupidity is that people can adorn themselves with confidence and wisdom, believing they are sharing the trailer park equivalent of E = mc-squared (I can’t make the little subterranean “2” on this particular puny earth keyboard).

The maxim: “One dog year equals seven human years” has never made sense to me. Even while I’m sagely repeating this inaccurate banality, a little voice of conscience is standing on my shoulder, yelling: “YOU FILTHY LIAR!”

I own a really tough Irish/Catholic conscience, even though I’m neither.

Think about it. I’ve owned a dog who lived to be 13. Nicky the Wonderdog, the most loyal, trusting, loving, caring pooch to ever share a cheeseburger with a human, would have been 91 in human years when he departed this parenthesis of woes.

I use “parenthesis of woes” because even though “vale/vail/vayle of tears” is shorter, I’m not sure the spelling of which V-word is correct and, right now, I’m too dog lazy to look it up. Nicky, being ethically superior, would not hold it against me.

It’s not that unusual to see 91-year-old humans. Certainly not on the racetrack behind the wheel of a Formula 1 car or in discos because, for the latter, they don’t make discos any more. But there are such things as 18-year-old dogs. There are no (7 x 18) 126-year-old humans. Max, a terrier, died last year a few months shy of being 30. Max is in the Guinness Book of World’s Records as the world’s oldest dog. Poor guy kicked the dog dish 83 days shy of turning 30. Interestingly, he died a week after his owners reported his status to Guinness.

Max’s last words?

“Thanks. I had a great run going. Really appreciate you jinxing it for me, fame-crazy human owners.”

Except for the Old Testament, there are no 210-year-old humans, or, 30-year-old dogs for that matter.

That would be cute. Fidoicus, a cute little hound, wearing a prophet’s robe, Duck Dynasty beards and carrying one of those little hockey sticks/shepherd’s staffs. You’d get more middle-of-the-roaders and, of course, the stoners, to read the Bible more if they had puppies in it.

“And the Lord said unto Fidoicus, ‘Go ye from Canine into Canaan this day, or, no rush, finish your lunch, and there slay all the annoying and uppity housecats with their hot rod attitudes. Take their remains and rend them, for they are an abomination to the landscape. Go ye then and take the cat remains and wash them on the high-speed Industrial Complete Thread & Button Removal cycle, two rinses, real hot water. And bleach. Take ye out the remains and punch them. Then, run the cat remnants, blessed by a prophet, or a vet, whichever one is closer and not busy, through the old-fashioned dryer you see in silent movies with the crank rollers. Fold the remains because, after all, what are we if we are not tidy? Go ye then amongst the Canaanoidians, casting the over-laundered and folded cats at the Canaaners heads and faces, not caring if you were to dislodge sunglasses (which would have been really handy to have in a 2nd-century desert). Say ye to those people, “For lo, this could be you, Bub. Watch it. And Fidocus, being a righteous dog, looked up to the Heavens and answered: “OK. I’ll do it. But just this once.”

— Book o’ Fido 3:146.2. And 2/3rds.

I’m not a biblical scholar. But did Canaan eventually become Canada? It’s only a couple of letters off.

I’d hope some politician would introduce legislation to make it illegal to use this dog/human 1:7 ratio. Just my luck, it would be some daft conservative congressman introducing such a bill. As soon as the words are out his mouth, his Republican colleagues are shushing him and trying to get his attention. It’s an election year and the noble social engineering would be spun the wrong way. The comically inept albeit influential media would scream the next day:

Heartless GOP Votes

to Cut Dog Life by 86%

Of course, if the Democrats introduced the exact same legislation, the one-college-unit press would run the headline:

Heroic Dems Increase

Lifespan in Dogs by 386%!

I don’t know. This is an essay about dog age. But I swear. If the Democrats introduced legislation requiring the removal of everyone’s heads, Liberals would be chuckling at how enlightened they were.

Dear Mr. Santa Clarita Valley:

I take time from my busy schedule of senseless pontification to point out that it is the Republicans who don’t care about dogs. They want to drown them in our drinking water. I’m not talking reservoirs, either.

That’s right.

I’ve been told, by highly placed and reliable sources within the Administration, that Republicans would like nothing better than to take each and every American dog, force its little button nose into a 3-ounce glass of water and drown them. Puppies. Blue collar working dogs, the backbone of this country. Poodles. Our own lovable favorite, the American mutt. Then, afterwards, the Republicans’d put their hands on their hips, throw their heads back and laugh like this: “Ah-HAH-HAH-huh-ha-HA-huuuhhhh!”

Here. Now this half of the room put your hands on your hips and go: “Ah-HAH-HAH-huh-ha-HA-huuuhhhh!”

Now the other half!

Now the boys do it!

Now the girls sing: “Ah-HAH-HAH-huh-ha-HA-huuuhhhh!”

That’s what I’m talkin’ about, all-y’all.

Me? I like dogs. I had two for breakfast.

Former President of the United States

Barack Hussein Obama

P.S. And please lay off the Foghorn Leghorn comparisons or I’ll go and draw an old ugly red line in the sand on you.

Thank you, Mr. Ex President. And, as I like to tell your wife: “You didn’t build that breakfast. Other people built that breakfast for you.”

Dog-Human Math is weird. A dog hour is seven hours long. Three and change make a day. No wonder they eat like they’re late to catch a bus. Can you imagine what their panting would sound like if they were aligned with our own homo sapien time continuum?

Editorial Hole. There’s a Charles Morris joke just waiting to wash itself in an inappropriate place, like Murphysboro, around there somewhere. This being a multiple choice blog, feel free to replace “Morris” with “New York Times Op/Ed Section.”

Well. This is the part of the column where I slam on the brakes, lock the tires and skid sideways into an AYSO game.

Ready?

In conclusion, and in my best bass astrophysicist Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson voice: perhaps it’s best that this 1:7 ratio remain as it is. If it were different, it begs the question. When you threw a ball or Frisbee, would your dog laconically walk to retrieve it? And, in doing so, would that make it a cat?

There are many frontiers to explore in quantum dog physics. For example, how old is Snoop Dog.